


Fallen Cupcakes

by cailures



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 06:15:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11891754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cailures/pseuds/cailures
Summary: Eleanor Shellstrop's dream was to run a bakery. Too bad the only experience this Eleanor has with bakeries is banging an ill-advised one night stand in the bathroom.





	Fallen Cupcakes

**Author's Note:**

> FOR #5
> 
> Eleanor's stuck running a bakery, with Chidi as her accountant.

Full disclosure: Eleanor had eaten a lot of terrible cupcakes in her lifetime. There had been a few really good ones - mostly stolen from other people’s plates, or that one time she took an entire box of baked goods off of a catering cart when the poor slob pushing it stopped to tie their shoelace - but most of them had been real garbage. Cupcakes made by some mom with nothing else to fill her life with other than a Valium prescription and showing up other parents at school fundraisers, awful pintrest-y failures that appeared in the breakroom at the call center, even 7/11 cupcakes in plastic wrappers that tasted like chemicals smelled.

None of those held a candle to the last ten batches - ten! Ten batches! - she had pulled out of the bakery’s ovens. She had done everything right (mostly), followed the recipe to the letter (kinda), and she had made sure to set a timer so she wouldn’t forget them this time.

Chidi held one in his hand. It was supposed to be a dumb cutesy bear for whatever dumb butt-patting party Tahani was throwing herself. The face had melted into a nightmarish scream. The top of the cupcake was burnt to Bad Place and back, but when Chidi pulled it out of the singed wrapper, it crumbled under his touch and dark batter oozed out the precariously thin bottom.

“Is it supposed to be molten inside? Like- like a lava cake? I- oh, oh no. That’s not- that’s just cake batter.” It drips on the floor. Chidi takes a frantic little step backwards, but still manages to get the batter on his shoes anyway. “Oh there it goes. Oh no. Ooooh that’s not. That’s. Okay.”

The dark splotch spreads over the floor. Eleanor grabs another cupcake and slams it on the floor, watching it explode into a shower of burnt crumbs and uncooked batter. It’s about the only satisfying thing that’s happened tonight, and even that’s ruined by Chidi’s agonized moaning.

“My pants.” He whines and Eleanor stomps on the mess on the floor.

“I don’t get it! I followed the stupid recipe to the letter this time! All the dumb equipment is brand new!” She grabs another muffin, but before she can throw it, Chidi quickly grabs her hand.

“I-I okay. Look. I know you’re frustrated and tired, and… and me too. But that isn’t helping anything. So please. Just don’t throw it.” Chidi looks so tired. And honestly? So is Eleanor. And how messed up is it that she’s in the Good Place but she still feels tired? Like what the fork?

Eleanor doesn’t throw the cupcake on the floor. She does throw it into the garbage, on top of the other failures she threw out. Ten batches of cupcakes is a lot. The trash can is nearly full. Time is running out. Tahani’s stupid party is in three hours. They’ve got time for maybe three more failures, but she’s out of patience.

“I’m going to make Janet make them.” Eleanor decides and no amount of Chidi groaning on is going to stop her this time. “Janet!”

LIke snap, she appears. “Yes?”

“I need you to make a bunch of these dumb cupcakes.” She grabs the magazine off the counter. The picture’s kind of gunked up with flour and bits of batter, so she pauses to wipe it off with her sleeve before she shows Janet. “Make like three hundred of them.”

Janet smiles. Her head tips to the side. “I can’t do that.”

“Oh god, it’s not going to work. I told you it wasn’t going to work. You can’t just cheat your way out of this-” Chidi starts into it but she really, really doesn’t want to hear it right now.

“Shut up Chidi!” Eleanor smacks a hand against the magazine. “You can make everything else! Just make these!”

“I can make everything. But my functionality has been limited by Michael. Anything that can be produced by businesses in the community cannot be made by me.” Janet’s positivity is grating at the best of time and it’s really doing a number on Eleanor now.

“Why the fork not?!”

“It’s to make sure people come here, and make Eleanor Shellstrop’s dreams of a successful bakery come true.” Chidi interjects and… oh. Oh of course. Of course. What better way to make something a hit than to remove the ability for anyone to just order up a dozen stupid cupcakes themselves?

“Okay, okay so- so maybe that’s what he wanted, but! Janet, I can’t have a successful bakery with cupcakes, so if you helped me by making me cupcakes, you’ll be helping me out, which is what Michael wants so you can do that. You can do that. Come on Janet! Just make them appear! Come on. Do it. Janet do it. Janet-” Her voice is getting desperate. She hates how her voice sounds when it gets desperate. Eleanor tries to straighten it out. “Janet. I need those cupcakes.”

“I know.” Janet smiles. “I can’t make them.”

“Fork! Mothertrucker!” Eleanor balls her hands up into fists. Okay think Eleanor. Just- just think. Figure out a solution.

Chidi, ever helpful, is having a bit of a meltdown too. “This is it. We’re done for. Tahani’s going to show up and nothing’s going to be made, and they’re going to want to look at the books and nothing’s balanced and they’ll figure out that you’re not really a baker and I didn’t renew my membership with ONECCA and I shouldn’t be touching anyone’s books-”

She can’t focus with Chidi going into a spiral. Eleanor puts aside her own frustration for the moment, putting her hands on Chidi’s arms to center him. “You’re going to be fine. Nobody’s going to care if you didn’t do whatever it is you do to be an accountant-”

“Chartered accountant.” He clarifies, and Eleanor stink eyes him. “Sorry.”

“You still passed everything. And I’m going to figure a solution out, so Tahani gets cupcakes. And nobody’s ever going to figure any of this out. Ever.” She squeezes his arms. “I promise.”

Chidi’s one failure away from his head crawling into his chest and never coming out again, but he seems to get a little less tense under her touch. Like, a smidge less tense. Eleanor’s counting that as a win. “Okay.”

Eleanor drops her hands and turns to face Janet-

She’s not there. “Janet?”

“Hello!” There she is.

“Janet, you can’t make cupcakes, right?”

“I can’t make cupcakes.” She agrees.

Eleanor licks her lips and breaks it down. “Can you get me the supplies I need to make three hundred cupcakes?”

“Okay!” The countertops are covered in bags of flour, eggs and other stuff Eleanor knows the name for but refuses to think of right now.

“Cool, cool. Now take those ingredients and make a batter out of them for me.” Eleanor keeps her eyes on the counter. In an instant, the ingredients are gone and there’s dozens of bowls on the counter, all full of batter. “Nice! Can you put bears on them like look like this picture?”

“Sure thing.” And like that, like magic but better because there aren’t any weirdos in silk capes named stuff like Dave Royale or Tony Magic standing just to the left, waiting to hit on Eleanor. There’s just cupcakes, ready to be baked.

Eleanor gives Chidi a thumbs up and goes for broke. “Can you cook those for exactly eighteen minutes, or until the insides are done?”

“Okay!” Janet says, and the kitchen is overwhelmed with the smell of baked cupcakes.

“Alright! Great work Janet!” Eleanor quickly digs one of the cupcakes out. It’s probably too hot to touch but when has that ever stopped her. The sickeningly cute bears on top look just like they did in the magazine. No gaping screams this time! And when she breaks it open, the insides are perfectly cooked and flaky. It’s perfect. “See? We’re fine! The day’s been saved!”

Chidi, who should be ecstatic that Eleanor once again saved the day, just looks like a dumb Debbie downer. He’s got his Lecture Face on and Eleanor just sighs. “Oh come on man, we did it! Just be happy for once!”

“You found a way around Janet’s protocols but that’s not the same thing as actually solving the problem-” Chidi’s not going to stop, so Eleanor just shoves half of the cupcake into his mouth. That at least surprises him enough to make him stop, even if it’s just so he can sputter out crumbs.

“It’s fine.” Eleanor says once again, with emphasis. “It all worked out in the end. And you thought I’d have to learn some stupid lesson.”

She grins and bites into the cupcake. Victory tastes so sweet.

… victory also tastes surprisingly crunchy. Eleanor pauses her chewing to spit her half-chewed cupcake into her hand and poke at it. There’s eggshells in it.

“Oh fork.” Eleanor mutters.


End file.
